What We Have Here is...

Yesterday's article Wired News: Worm Exploits Weak Link: PC Users is a very real reminder of the disparity in the needs and experience levels of the millions of people who use the Internet.

One of the main challenges a company like Microsoft faces in situations like the this attack is that, although corporate IT types are well aware of the need for patches and firewalls to prevent events like this from taking down their networks, the average consumer is not likely to share that knowledge.

From the teacher who thought she was actually avoiding a virus attack by refusing to install a legitimate patch pushed to her system, to the security experts who assume that everyone understands what a firewall is and that the company is routinely updating its operating systems, there is a counterpoint to the experience. Another user actually got a virus by opening a "safe" download, and some companies were scrambling to update software with patches yesterday, despite nearly a month's lead time on this information.

My favorite quote in the article was this one from the last page:

"'There is no way to characterize the numbers of PCs that have AutoUpdate in effect and it didn't work, had disarmed AutoUpdate or had somehow fouled up the entire thing with processes or behaviors that aren't predictable," said computer virus researcher George Smith. "

To me, the suggestion that the customers were solely to blame for this worm was incredibly condescending and the reference to the lack of predictabilty in customers' behavior was very arrogant. With this statement, this researcher appears to suggest that only the elite technocracy. with predictable behavior patterns should have access to the Web, since they can't seem to get with the program as the usability experts envisioned it. Downloading the patch is something that is routine to some, and highly foreign to others. Some users simply won't "get it" no matter what

Given the current marketing environment, what are some of the ways software manufacturers might communicate at the lowest cost with all key segments of users to deliver the best benefits statements to sell the product or service?